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Tuesday, July 29, 2014

A Lot of This a Little of That... and Nada to Write About

This here is one of those lulls that come along from time to time. Things going on but little that would be entertaining to read about.

I'm also in one of those "mental" places that are hard to describe. When circumstance and situation keeps you doing things that truly don't toot your whistle... but they have to be done none the less, and you still have to wait on other "things" to come along that give you the tools to get on with keeping on.

Another few days and I'll have things lined up to stack up the parts and supplies to do a brake and bearing R&R on the fiver. Before that however I'll do the Recoat on the rubber roof.

It seems, emphasizing "seems", like I finally won out over the wasps. Haven't seen any on the roof in over a week and locking them out of the furnace vent seems to have sealed that part of the deal. We'll see when I actually get on the roof trying to do that work.

Been riding a lot now that the scooter is back together. Getting ready to take a few days and make a good circle... That should shore up my ambitions enough to come back to that brake and roof work. ;)

And... back at the end of June... I fought my way through the "Other" U.S. Government website that sorta-kinda works... the Social Security Department. Yup, they been swiping that first chunk of every years paychecks right along with the IRS for something goin' on 45 years now...

I've manged to live long enough to start grabbing a part of it back... So come October I begin to get a nice kick in my monthly allowance. :) Combined with the Beet Harvest in Sydney that same month... I will, with my fingers tightly crossed and a loaded pistol in my belt (waiting on that Miserable Murphy to show his face) be watching for those deposits in my account.

It might could be that I managed through stumble and bungle to have toughed it out long enough to turn the corner on our broke as a bankrupt bedbug finances.

So... back to that "Mental Place"...hmmm... THAT is opening up a can of worms now ain't it?

This is being a long long summer. Arrived here in March... broker than I was when we pulled out. Bike needing work (and figuring to sell her), truck needing still more work and the fiver in trouble as well...

Expenses sitting here are as low as they could be... though it don't happen fast, that lets me divert money that might have been goin' into diesel and camp fees... into the maintenance and repairs.

Truth be told, of all the places I could be "stuck"... this farm is not a bad place to be laid up for a while...

But... THAT... being laid up in one place for all this time has been the illuminating thing in this I think.

Don't misunderstand... I've known my whole life that I was a gypsy... in more ways than one. Any sort of a same old same old is gar-uhn-teed to quiver my liver. I get bored quick and easy... Turns out, I NEED a kaleidoscope of sorts spinning in my eyes to keep me level.

But that knowledge... of exactly who and what you are can get lost to you in all the confusion and trials of living. It's infernally easy to allow what some others think you should be doing to gain an improper influence... and not enforce the rightful power of the whispers of your own heart.

Sometimes you have to have a time where you sit quiet and really look in the mirror to regain that clear notion of who you are and where you're goin'... and where I'm goin'... Will always be the road.

... and not to "get" anywhere either. Only to go... it's the goin' I treasure. It's the change, the wonder... something in that always moving, always with my eyes on the horizon...the wind in my face.

It's there on the open road where that feeling that has swoll up inside, that queasy sensation that is almost a panic... recedes and fades away to nothing... until I sit still too long and that feeling rises up once again...

My heart whispers; Its time Brian, let's move on... and when I do, my serenity returns.

The Road is where I belong. It's where I have always belonged.

This few months off of it, have served to show me clear and undeniable... that drifting and wandering is what suits me. It's what fits. It goes clean back to the middle 70's when I was rodeoin'. I loved the road then... and I love it now... I just let myself get misdirected for too too long.

Folks often go out looking for that thing that "blows them away"... that keeps their hearts pounding... only to be frustrated... because there is really nothing that can sustain that level of impact on you. And you can't endure it if it did... and if you did the exceptional would only become the mundane.

What makes sense is to find that "Thing"... whatever it is... that simply gives you the feeling that you belong where you are. Something that, at the end of the day leaves you feeling RIGHT.

For me... that thing, that Right place is the road. I can cogitate about base camps, home bases, part time wandering and such things all I want... the simple fact is... the only place I am content... the ONLY place I feel balanced and where I belong... is looking over a set of handlebars with my knees in the wind... or looking through a windshield... with nowhere to be and all day to get there.

Just moving down a lonely ribbon of highway.

Really it's a simple thing. It doesn't have me giggling like an idiot all the time...The road isn't that sort of thing. It simply leaves me comfortable and feeling right... where everything else puts me restless and ill at ease.

A big part of that feeling of belonging are all those little bits along the way... things that to others, I think, aren't even remembered... To me they are THE things to remember... because they are the joyous bits of normal every day life... They don't require you to be in some spectacular once in a lifetime and then gone places... they are the sorts of things, if you pay attention and learn to push all the ever'day Crap of life away... they can put a high shine on your day.

I remember sitting at a table in front of a convenience store on a ride in California a couple years ago. Just sitting quiet watching the people come and go... enjoying a cup of truckstop coffee and a heart stopping sweet roll covered in sugary goo... a good and quiet "moment" in the day.

I remember a road from that ride... two actually... one was a slow roll on a winding foothills road through an area of Oaks dotting green grassy pastures... the serenity of that country has stuck with me. The other was a twisting two lane along a river canyon where the Road, my bike, and me hit sort of a perfect harmony for maybe forty miles.

I ran through there with a grin. It's one of those perfect roads. Not a hard and peg scraping sort of run... It's a place where you can get into a joyous, swinging, fast, sweeping rhythm. No brakes and no shifting gears... Twist the throttle hard in the short straights between the bends... and then let the engine compression pull us back down into the next turn... lean in and accelerate out hard again. Lean over the other way and rumble back down again into the next turn.

Many times there were no straights between the turns. You just came out of leaning into a right hander to swing back over and sweep into the left... Back and forth a graceful and glorious asphalt dance. Back and forth accelerate and then rumble back down. Left and Right sweeping through the turns.

It was the sort of road you hope will never end. It was an absolute dream of a road...

Yeah... I know... an awful lot of words for not having anything to write about. :)
Brian

4 comments:

I don't know if it will ease your mind or not about the social security payments but I will let you know that my first check arrived electronically without a hitch.

I did the online application when required, I think it was 60? days before my 62nd birthday. I've never spoken to anyone on the phone. I received an email verification about the date of my first check and the payment schedule in the future.

A few weeks ago I received that first check electronically with zero problems. It's a nice little 'bump' in the monthly income.

Steve; I had some trouble getting through... their site kept crashing on me. and they didn't notify me either by email or snail mail... I had to call them and wait on the phone for twenty minutes... buuuut... it's coming :) Most folks don't believe how little we've been living on and getting by. maybe 30% of what we used to make. For me that "bump" will be more like a mountain! :)

Furry; yeah... once I get the wheels greased and my wind up... hang on! :)